The "curse" above is of dubious origin, but I still like it. As educators, we are certainly living in not what I would call interesting, but rather horrible times. I chose to get into the field of education two years ago. It didn't seem so bad at the time, but now? Oy gevalt! Tomorrow I will be interviewing for a temporary position in one of the larger school districts in the state of Oregon. Just the fact that I've had interviews in this economy could be viewed as something of a minor miracle. I find it so ironic that we (and by "we," I mean all of us) talk so much about the importance of education, yet we can't find ways of funding the schools. Now, as a person who understands the way that economies and recessions work, I also understand that falling tax collection has a direct impact on all government services, and that because states can't borrow money like the federal government (which is a good thing, trust me) that the states aren't shielded from the effects of recessions very well. Education usually makes up large portions of state budgets, so when it's time to cut, they must cut education.
But that doesn't mean that I have to like it.
So, simply, what are solutions to the problem. Well, long-term would be stable sources of income based on strong economies. Oregon doesn't really have a "rainy day" fund for times crisis. If the government takes in more than they were anticipating, they're prohibited from holding it back for a rainy day and must send back rebate checks to the taxpayers. That includes during times like this. So, imagine a situation where the economy rebounds faster than expected. Could we use that money to offset the cuts in government services? No. This is insane.
It is recommended that in good times, good times, that people have at least three months worth of living expenses in the bank to help weather the storm of unemployment, hospitalization, or other problems. But these aren't good times. We wasted our money in the form of tax cuts during prosperous times when that was the time that we should have had higher taxes. That way we would have had the latitude to lower taxes as a stimulative measure. But unfortunately we didn't do that.
Bluh.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Swearing at the TV.
I saw this on the NBC Nightly news and I should have gotten depressed. Instead I let loose with a series of expletives that are usually reserved for use exclusively by sailors. Then when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels spoke at the 1:32 mark, I lost it! He said “…class size, by comparison, is virtually meaningless. Put a great teacher in front of large class and you can expect results!” Anyone who is a teacher or a parent knows that both classroom size and teacher quality have an impact on student performance. So I call shenanigans on Governor Daniels. He has a political ideology, and is firing yet another salvo in the war against teachers.
Sorry, I can't write anymore. I'm seething with rage... (calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Cross-gender bullying, the most confusing kind.
I think that we all know that bullying is a serious problem that some parents (and even some rare teachers) see as an unpleasant but nearly unavoidable rite of passage. We're familiar with the typical patterns of teasing. While not perfectly representative of the differences in gender with regards to teasing, I really enjoy this Seinfeld exchange:
ELAINE: Why do they call it a wedgie?
GEORGE: Because the underwear is pulled up from the back and ... it wedges in..
JERRY: They also have an atomic wedgie. Now the goal there is to actually get the waistband on top of the head. Very rare.
ELAINE: Boys are sick.
JERRY: Well what do girls do?
ELAINE: We just tease some one 'til they develop an eating disorder.
So, we get it. Boys bully boys and girls bully girls. There really are differences between the genders when it comes to these behaviors. Males are more likely to use physical aggression as a means of expressing their bullying behaviors, and girls are much more likely to use verbal and social methods of bullying. So, Elaine was right. Boys and girls really do use different methods. But what happens when boys bully girls or even more stranger, when girls bully boys? From an early age, boys are taught to "pick on someone their own size," so it seems there's already a stigma against boys crossing that gender line. So even guys know not to physically pick on girls, it's just "not fair." But how often are girls told not to use the tools that they're socialized/innately familiar with on the other gender. It seems to me that girls who don't bully boys don't do so because they don't realize that it was an option.
Here is where I come out of the closet and admit that like many other kids, I was bullied. But in my case, the bullying that is the clearest and simultaneously most confusing was that which was visited upon me by girls. The thing is that I never remembered hearing the same prohibition for girls not to bully boys. And when you're a boy who's being made fun of by a girl, it's a lot harder to report it. A male is supposed to be independent and strong. It reminds me of the statement that I once heard a parent say: "How can you be failing ART?!?" Imagine the same incredulity with a statement "how could you be bullied by a GIRL?!?" At least that's what I would imagine being said to me if I ever brought it up.
Because girls tend to use social and verbal methods to bully, I wonder whether they are "attuned" to those who might be more likely to be affected by those methods. How the bullying manifested itself in my case was, it seems, to intentionally shred my self confidence around females. What was said and done is irrelevant and not appropriate to write in a blog post here. However, it has been shown that bullies have an ability to identify victims who are less likely to be defended by their peers and that they bully in packs. That makes sense, and the fact that my experiences of female-on-male bullying were almost always by multiple girls "working together" bears that out. For me, it was very traumatic, but don't worry, I've gotten over it. I worry about the kids who are victims now.
So, what's the point? Why do I bring this up? The reason is that we need to shift our perceptions about what bullying looks like and what we can do about it. As with any subject, we should occasionally question what we "know" to be true. Where does the information about what is "common knowledge" come from? While cross-gender bullying may be comparatively rare, it happens. I have been trying in vain to find good resources for boys or young men who are bullied by girls or young women on the Internet. I can't believe that what happened to me was so unusual that no one has heard of it. If anyone reading this blog has information that they can link to, please write something in the comments and I will update the post.
GEORGE: Because the underwear is pulled up from the back and ... it wedges in..
JERRY: They also have an atomic wedgie. Now the goal there is to actually get the waistband on top of the head. Very rare.
ELAINE: Boys are sick.
JERRY: Well what do girls do?
ELAINE: We just tease some one 'til they develop an eating disorder.
So, we get it. Boys bully boys and girls bully girls. There really are differences between the genders when it comes to these behaviors. Males are more likely to use physical aggression as a means of expressing their bullying behaviors, and girls are much more likely to use verbal and social methods of bullying. So, Elaine was right. Boys and girls really do use different methods. But what happens when boys bully girls or even more stranger, when girls bully boys? From an early age, boys are taught to "pick on someone their own size," so it seems there's already a stigma against boys crossing that gender line. So even guys know not to physically pick on girls, it's just "not fair." But how often are girls told not to use the tools that they're socialized/innately familiar with on the other gender. It seems to me that girls who don't bully boys don't do so because they don't realize that it was an option.
Here is where I come out of the closet and admit that like many other kids, I was bullied. But in my case, the bullying that is the clearest and simultaneously most confusing was that which was visited upon me by girls. The thing is that I never remembered hearing the same prohibition for girls not to bully boys. And when you're a boy who's being made fun of by a girl, it's a lot harder to report it. A male is supposed to be independent and strong. It reminds me of the statement that I once heard a parent say: "How can you be failing ART?!?" Imagine the same incredulity with a statement "how could you be bullied by a GIRL?!?" At least that's what I would imagine being said to me if I ever brought it up.
Because girls tend to use social and verbal methods to bully, I wonder whether they are "attuned" to those who might be more likely to be affected by those methods. How the bullying manifested itself in my case was, it seems, to intentionally shred my self confidence around females. What was said and done is irrelevant and not appropriate to write in a blog post here. However, it has been shown that bullies have an ability to identify victims who are less likely to be defended by their peers and that they bully in packs. That makes sense, and the fact that my experiences of female-on-male bullying were almost always by multiple girls "working together" bears that out. For me, it was very traumatic, but don't worry, I've gotten over it. I worry about the kids who are victims now.
So, what's the point? Why do I bring this up? The reason is that we need to shift our perceptions about what bullying looks like and what we can do about it. As with any subject, we should occasionally question what we "know" to be true. Where does the information about what is "common knowledge" come from? While cross-gender bullying may be comparatively rare, it happens. I have been trying in vain to find good resources for boys or young men who are bullied by girls or young women on the Internet. I can't believe that what happened to me was so unusual that no one has heard of it. If anyone reading this blog has information that they can link to, please write something in the comments and I will update the post.
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